On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:04:37AM +0100, Phil Mayers wrote: > > ...whereas because ACLs are variable length, determined by customers > and possibly large, performance of a RAM-based ACL algorithm is hard > to predict, and people want predictable performance, and usually > line-rate performance.
Just wait until you figure out that it's possible to get significantly less than line-rate performance out of an I-chip with just a dozen relatively simple firewall terms. :( > Hehe. "Tag switching will make core routers really cheap, you'll have > a few really big PE routers only". Wasn't that the line we were sold > with TDP? And they totally could be too, if anyone bothered to actually make them. You don't even need to spin custom ASICs (one could argue that their might not be enough business to justify it anyways), label switching is so easy from a hardware perspective that it's not even funny. Everyone and their mother is busy churning out Broadcom Trident+ based 64x10G 1U boxes right now (see: Juniper QFX, etc), and at a price of a couple hundred bucks a 10G even on the high end. Why aren't these boxes making great LSRs? The problem is, the software side of MPLS (i.e. all of the associated protocols surrounding it) is so complicated, only Cisco and Juniper have figured out how to actually implement it correctly (and that is only because they wrote most of it :P). All the hardware in the world doesn't help you if you don't have the right software, and C/J shockingly don't want to make a $10k box that obsoletes the need for a $1mil T-series. This is why OpenFlow has them all running scared. :) The PTX is the first thing to actually attempt to be a label switching router only, but even that one is a) still vaporware, and b) designed to be sold to only a handful of super large carriers, and still at fairly premium prices. All they're trying to do is keep the T-series business unit from losing money to the MX-series business unit (since the MX is just as capable of doing everything T does w/MPLS as a core router, but at 1/4 the price), they aren't ACTUALLY trying to make a cheaper LSR. :) If more people used MPLS, and if some competetive vendor could figure out how to write all the protocols for it to run on a small/cheap box, the core router market could get REALLY interesting. -- Richard A Steenbergen <r...@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC) _______________________________________________ juniper-nsp mailing list juniper-nsp@puck.nether.net https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/juniper-nsp